Theme From John Adams

Something for the weekend.  The superb intro to the John Adams miniseries,  a model of how history should be dramatized.

Our Oldest Ally

Our oldest ally is France, the nation that proved vital in our War for Independence.  I sometimes share the annoyance felt by many Americans towards France.

My attitude in regard to France is often similar to that of President Johnson, after French President Charles de Gaulle ordered all American troops out of France in 1964:

In 1964 French President Charles de Gaulle withdrew France from NATO’s military structure. He ordered all American military personnel out of France. American President Lyndon Johnson directed Secretary of State Dean Rusk to visit de Gaulle personally and ask de Gaulle a single question.

“You tell de Gaulle that this question is from the mouth of the President of the United States of America,” he told Rusk. Rusk balked when Johnson told him the question, saying, “I cannot say that to the president of France.” Johnson replied, “You tell him exactly what I said.”

In Paris de Gaulle, standing behind his desk, restated his order to Rusk for American troops to be withdrawn. Rusk told him, “I am directed by President Johnson to ask you this question. It is from the mouth of the President of the United States: ‘Does your order include the bodies of American soldiers in France’s cemeteries?’”

Rusk later related that the question hit de Gaulle so hard that he collapsed into his chair and did not respond for a full minute.

At times I even emotionally agree with the characterization of groundskeeper Willie in the Simpsons of the French being “cheese eating surrender monkeys”, even though I know intellectually that the French have usually fought with great valor in their wars.

However then something like this comes along and I repent of my anti-French prejudice.

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Plymouth Thanksgiving 1861

 

 

“Camp Butler, Newport News, Va., Nov. 17, 1861
Mr. Editor : — It may be interesting to the folks at home to know how the soldiers from Plymouth passed Thanksgiving, and how they enjoyed themselves.  I cannot answer for Plymouth volunteers in other places, but certainly those who are quartered here, spent the day as pleasantly as could be expected, under the circumstances.

Lincoln and Liberty Too

I live in the Land of Lincoln.  I sometimes joke that we call ourselves that because Lincoln was the only honest politician ever to come from Illinois.  Each summer the family and I go down to Springfield.  We see the Lincoln museum and go over to the Lincoln tomb.  We say a few prayers for the soul of the Great Emancipator.  ”It is all together fitting and proper that we do” that, but why do we do it?

We do it because for us Lincoln is not just a historical figure, dimly recalled from a history textbook.  Rather for us he is a living presence and reminder of just how precious liberty is.  In the movie Meet John Doe, Frank Capra’s cautionary film in 1941 about how fascism could come to America, the following scene occurs with a drunken editor, Connell, who warns John Doe, played by Gary Cooper, that fifth columnists are using him:

The First Thanksgiving

On Thursday, we will be giving thanks to an unspecified being for our enormous good fortune, much as the early Pilgrims did in Plymouth some four hundred years ago when they gave thanks for their bountiful harvest and celebrated with the Native Americans.  Only, that’s not the real story behind the first Thanksgiving.  My co-blogger Gipper Clone emailed me this article by Richard Mayburyin which he explains why our traditional understanding of the original day of Thanksgiving is faulty.  Further, it masks the real story of Thanksgiving: our forebears only succeeded once they ditched the socialist utopia that was killing them off in droves.

The problem with this official story is that the harvest of 1621 was not bountiful, nor were the colonists hardworking or tenacious. 1621 was a famine year and many of the colonists were lazy thieves.

In his ‘History of Plymouth Plantation,’ the governor of the colony, William Bradford, reported that the colonists went hungry for years, because they refused to work in the fields. They preferred instead to steal food. He says the colony was riddled with “corruption,” and with “confusion and discontent.” The crops were small because “much was stolen both by night and day, before it became scarce eatable.”

. . .To rectify this situation, in 1623 Bradford abolished socialism. He gave each household a parcel of land and told them they could keep what they produced, or trade it away as they saw fit. In other words, he replaced socialism with a free market, and that was the end of famines.

So the true story of the first Thanksgiving is that the colonists were giving thanks to . .  capitalism!

Except that’s not the truth behind the first Thanksgiving.  In fact, it was a small holiday celebrated in Virginia on Berkeley Plantation.

Each first Sunday in November a Thanksgiving Festival is held at the Berkeley Plantation in accordance with documentation from 1619. The event fulfills instructions given to the 38 settlers who arrived on the banks of the James River at Berkeley Hundred as documented in the proclamation:

“Wee ordaine that the day of our ships arrival at the place assigned for plantacon in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God.“

Very interesting.  Except that’s not the real story behind the first Thanksgiving.  As Jay Anderson explains, there is another account of the first Thanksgiving.

If you want to know about the real first Thanksgiving on American soil, travel 1,200 miles south and more than 50 years earlier to a grassy spot on the Matanzas River in North Florida.

This is where Spanish Adm. Pedro Menendez de Aviles came ashore on Sept. 8, 1565. This is where he, 500 soldiers, 200 sailors, 100 civilian families and artisans, and the Timucuan Indians who occupied the village of Seloy gathered at a makeshift altar and said the first Christian Mass. And afterward, this is where they held the first Thanksgiving feast.

Jay notes that there were several other “first” Thanksgivings, including the first official US proclamation issued by President Washington.  And as we all know, Thanksgiving did not become an official holiday until 1863, when it was instituted by President Lincoln.

So, what’s the real story?

Does it matter?

Whatever the real story of the first Thanksgiving is, let us all just take a moment to give thanks to God for all that he has bestowed upon us that live in this greatest Nation in the world.

 

General Lee’s Greatest Victory

“It’s a warm spring Sunday at Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church in Richmond. As the minister is about to present Holy Communion, a tall well-dressed black man sitting in the section reserved for African Americans unexpectedly advances to the communion rail; unexpectedly because this has never happened here before. The congregation freezes. Those who have been ready to go forward and kneel at the communion rail remain fixed in their pews. The minister stands in his place stunned and motionless. The black man slowly lowers his body, kneeling at the communion rail. After what seems an interminable amount of time, an older white man rises. His hair snowy white, head up, and eyes proud, he walks quietly up the isle to the chancel rail. So with silent dignity and self-possession, the white man kneels down to take communion along the same rail with the black man. Lee has said that he has rejoiced that slavery is dead. But this action indicates that those were not idle words meant to placate a Northern audience. Here among his people, he leads wordlessly through example. The other communicants slowly move forward to the altar with a mixture of reluctance and fear, hope and awkward expectation. In the end, America would defy the cruel chain of history besetting nations torn apart by Civil War.”

From “April 1865: the Month that Saved America”

Federalist 22 – Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton continues to examine the deficiencies of the American confederacy in Federalist 22.  He begins by noting the problems with regulating commerce under the current system.

The want of a power to regulate commerce is by all parties allowed to be of the number. The utility of such a power has been anticipated under the first head of our inquiries; and for this reason, as well as from the universal conviction entertained upon the subject, little need be added in this place. It is indeed evident, on the most superficial view, that there is no object, either as it respects the interests of trade or finance, that more strongly demands a federal superintendence. The want of it has already operated as a bar to the formation of beneficial treaties with foreign powers, and has given occasions of dissatisfaction between the States. No nation acquainted with the nature of our political association would be unwise enough to enter into stipulations with the United States, by which they conceded privileges of any importance to them, while they were apprised that the engagements on the part of the Union might at any moment be violated by its members, and while they found from experience that they might enjoy every advantage they desired in our markets, without granting us any return but such as their momentary convenience might suggest.

It is unsurprising that Hamilton would list this as one of the principle flaws of the confederacy.  But here he moves beyond domestic considerations to explore how the current system hinders our commercial dealings with foreign powers.  This is a subtext of most of this particular essay, as Hamilton seems very concerned that the lack of commercial power is hampering the development of America as a commercial power, and is doing so by sullying its reputation by making it an unattractive trading partner.  After all, why should a foreign nation desire to enter into an agreement with another nation that lacks the ability to enforce its treaties?

Not only does the current structure hurt the United States in terms of foreign commercial opportunities, but it creates interstate rivalries.

The Freemen Have Assented

As we celebrate the Pilgrims this week, we should also remember the Catholic pilgrims who came to these shores and helped build America.. Maryland, the Catholic colony, played a remarkable role in early American colonial history. Although Catholics in Maryland would eventually be stripped of many of their civil rights in Maryland by a Protestant majority until the time of the Revolution, while they were a political force they helped lay the foundations for a new nation. One of the most remarkable documents produced during the time that Catholics ruled Maryland is The Toleration Act of 1649, one of the first legislative acts in the American colonies to establish toleration for all Christian faiths. This was a compromise document between the Catholics and Protestants of Maryland and its text is as follows:

We Have No King But Jesus

Today is the Feast of Christ the King, the end of the liturgical year in the Catholic Church.

Johnny Has Gone For A Soldier

Something for the weekend.  Johnny Has Gone For A Soldier.  A song that has echoed in all of America’s wars, starting with the American Revolution.  Nothing better captures the sad partings that accompany every war.